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The light rain of the early evening had turned to sleet. Once parked, Beauvoir reached for the door handle, but for the second time that endless day, Chief Inspector Gamache stopped him.

“Wait.”

Dear God, thought Jean-Guy. Not more poetry. Shoot me now.

But the Chief Inspector just sat, and stared out the window at the dark house, barely visible through the trees. One dim light shone in a downstairs window.

“Do you see any vehicles in the drive?”

Beauvoir squinted. “No. Dagenais’s car is at the station.”

Gamache would know that, thought Beauvoir. So why ask? And what were they waiting for? They had the warrant. None of this made sense.

A couple of minutes later a pickup truck drove by and turned into Dagenais’s driveway.

“Do you recognize it?”

Beauvoir did. His face, unseen in the dark, had gone pale.

“It’s the second-in-command. Dagenais’s man. The one who almost got us all killed. The one you released.”

Beauvoir expected some reaction from Gamache. An acknowledgment that he’d fucked up. The guy must be there for the same reason they were. To find the evidence. And Gamache was letting him do it.

“Oui,” said Gamache. “This’s why I released him.”

“You expected him to come here?”

“I hoped.”

It took Agent Beauvoir a few moments to adjust, and see the man beside him as not an incompetent lunatic.

“Holy shit, you expected him to come here.” The words were the same, but the tone and emphasis had changed. “You released him so he could do our work for us.”

“So he could find what we almost certainly never would,” said Gamache. “Dagenais would’ve hidden the evidence too well. But his second-in-command, also implicated, would know where.”

He reached for the door handle, as did Beauvoir. “Non. Stay here.”

“But—”

“I need you here. If he gets by me, if he tries to leave, stop him. Block the road. Assume he’s armed. Arrest him.”

“D’accord. And you?”

“When you have him secured, come find me. Got it? Whatever you hear, do not leave your post. Do you understand?”

Beauvoir knew what that meant. “Are you sure—”

“You’re the last line of defense, Agent Beauvoir. You have to stop him. We have to get that evidence. They’ll find other children. Might even be grooming some right now. You have to stop him. I’m counting on you, Jean-Guy.”

“Yessir.”

Beauvoir watched as the Chief Inspector disappeared into the swirling rain and snow.

The sleet hit Gamache’s face and made it difficult to see. But it also meant it would be difficult to be seen.

Crouching low, he approached the house slowly. Slowly.

Beauvoir was right, of course. In waiting, he’d allowed this man to get a head start on finding evidence. And maybe destroying it. This might’ve been a huge misjudgment.